Author: Badalian Vardan

ARMENIAN GM HALTS KOUSHIK’S WINNING RUN

Rediff

Aug 11, 2011
India

Armenian GM Robert Hovhannisyan halted giant-killer Girish Koushik’s
winning spree in the ninth round on a day when Fide Masters VAV Rajesh
of Chennai Kerala’s [ Images ] SL Narayanan, and local lass Michelle
Catherina, obtained their International Master norms with strong
positive performances in the ongoing World Junior Chess Championships,
in Chennai.

Elena Semenova also gained an IM Norms.

In a Slav game, Karnataka’s [ Images ] Girish worked out tactics
early to launch a rapid kingside play. The Armenian took some time
to keep things under control on the kingside and he even sacrificed
an exchange in the process.

Soon Girish’s kingside initiative evaporated and the focus shifted
to the queenside where the Armenian’s pawns started moving forward.

Girish’s extra exchange was of no use against the might of the black
passed pawns and in the end Girish had to give up a piece to land
into a lost position in 46 moves.

With this win, Robert Hovhannisyan moved into the sole lead with
eight points in 9 games.

Hovhannisyan is followed in the second place with 7.5 points by
Armenian GM Ter Sahakyan Samvel (7.5 pts).

Important results:

Boys: Girish A.Koushik (Ind-7) lost to Robert Hovhannisyan (ARM-8),
Axel Rombaldoni (ITA-6.5) drew Swiercz Dariusz (Swe-7), Nils Grandelius
(SWE-6) drew Vidit Santosh Gujarathi (Ind-6), Milos Roganovic (Srb-6)
bt Matlakov Maxim (RUS-5), Ter-Sahakyan Samvel (ARM-7.5) bt Ivan Lopez
Salgado (Esp-6): Durarbeyli Vasif (AZE 6.5) drew B.Adhiban (INnd-6.5),
Ray Robson (USA-6.5)bt M.Shyam Sundar (Ind-5.5), Piorun Kacper
(POL-5) lost to S.L.Narayanan n(Ind-6), Sasa Martinovic (CRO-6.5)
bt Urkedai Frode (Nor-5.5), Anwesh Upadhyaya (Ind-5.5) drew Sanan
Sjugirov (Rus-5) and V.A.V.Rajesh (Ind?5.5) bt Jorge Cori (Per-4.5).

Girls: Elena Semenova (Rus-6.5) drew Girya Olga (Rus-7.5), Cori
T.Deysi (Per-8) bt Nazi Paikidze (Geo-5.5), Irina Bulmaga (Rou-6)
bt Mammadova Gulnar Marfat Qizi (AZE-6.5), Kulon Klaudia 9Pol-6) drew
Padmini Rout (Ind-6); Kazimova Narmin Qizi (Aze-5.5) lost to Ozturk
Kubra (Tur-6.5), Lkhamsuren Uuganbayar (MGL-5.5) lost to Inna Agrest
(Swe-6), Chandika Divyasree (UInd-5.5) drew Anatasia Savina (Rus-5.5)
and Michelle Catherina (Ind-6) bt Bhakti Kulkarni (Ind-5).

ARMENIAN GM HALTS GIRISH KOUSHIK”S WINNING SPREE

IBNLive.com

Aug 11, 2011

Chennai, Aug 11 (PTI) Armenian GM Robert Hovhannisyan halted
giant-killer Girish Koushik’s winning spree in the ninth round on
a day when Fide Masters VAV Rajesh of Chennai Kerala’s SL Narayanan
and local lass Michelle Catherina obtained their International Master
norms with strong positive performances in the ongoing World Junior
Chess Championships. Elena Semenova also gained an IM Norms. In a
Slav game, Karnataka’s Girish worked out tactics early to launch
a rapid kingside play. The Armenian took some time to keep things
under control on the kingside and he even sacrificed an exchange in
the process. Soon Girish’s kingside initiative evaporated and the
focus shifted to the queenside where the Armenian’s pawns started
moving forward. Girish’s extra exchange was of no use against the
might of the black passed pawns and in the end Girish had to give
up a piece to land into a lost position in 46 moves. With this win,
Robert Hovhannisyan has moved into the sole lead with eight points in
9 games. Hovhannisyan is followed in the second place with 7.5 points
by Armenian GM Ter Sahakyan Samvel (7.5 pts). Swedish Grandmaster
Swirecz Dariusz tamed Italian IM Axel Rombaldoni to move into the
joint third place with 7 points along with India’s Girish Koushik. FM
V A V Rajesh, a student of Loyola College, Chennai, scored a fluent
win over Peruvian Grandmaster Jorge Cori to complete his third and
final International Master norm. Rajesh needs to cross the 2400 rating
barrier to get the IM title and he will be gaining around 40 rating
points from this championship. Yet another Indian boy, Kerala’s S L
Narayanan tamed Polish IM Piorun Kacper to gain his maiden IM norm.

AZERBAIJAN’S CONCEPT ON KARABAKH CONFLICT RESTS ON INT’L LAW – MP

news.az
Gun.Az
Aug 11, 2011
Azerbaijan

The concept Azerbaijan has put forward about the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict is guided by international law.

The statement came from Mubariz Gurbanli, deputy executive secretary of
the ruling New Azerbaijan Party and member of Azerbaijani Parliament.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s meeting with Russian President
Dmitriy Medvedev in Sochi is another stage in conflict resolution
talks, the MP said.

Recalling the trilateral meeting in Kazan held some time ago, Gurbanli
said Russia has intensified efforts at time when Armenia is confronted
with heavy social and economic problems.

President Ilham Aliyev has made clear the concept Azerbaijan has
identified about Karabakh in all meetings. This concept rests on
international law, he added.

‘The norms and principle of international law emphasizes territorial
integrity and sovereignty. Territorial integrity and sovereignty are
key views put forward by Azerbaijan in these negotiations. In the
meantime, the Kazan meeting showed that the Armenian diplomacy is
indeed at the dead end.

In other words, Armenians fail to put forwards any other views that can
oppose fair and unbiased stance of our state. In all cases, occupation
of Azerbaijan’s lands by Armenia is obvious and it is impossible to
deny this. Therefore, lack of any outcome in the Kazan meeting was
due to Armenia’s non-constructive position,’ the NAP official noted.

MUBARIZ GURBANLI: “THE KAZAN MEETING BETWEEN THE PRESIDENTS SHOWED THAT ARMENIAN DIPLOMACY DEADLOCKED IN FACT”

APA
Aug 11, 2011
Azerbaijan

Baku. Ramil Mammadli – APA. “Azerbaijan’s concept concerning the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict is based on the international law. The
meeting between President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev in Sochi is the next phase of the
negotiations on the solution to Nagorno Karabakh conflict”, Deputy
Executive Secretary of the New Azerbaijan Party (YAP), MP Mubariz
Gurbanli told YAP’s website, APA reports.

Reminding about the recent trilateral meeting in Kazan, Gurbanli
said Russia had to be more active in the solution of this conflict as
Armenia faced with heavy socio-economic problems currently. He said
that during all of these meetings, President Ilham Aliyev clearly
explained the Azerbaijan’s Karabakh concept: “Azerbaijan’s concept
concerning the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is based on the international
law. The international law focused on the principles of territorial
integrity and sovereignty. Azerbaijan also focused attention on the
territorial integrity and sovereignty during the talks. The Kazan
meeting showed that Armenian diplomacy deadlocked in fact. Armenians
can not put forward any idea before the fair and objective position
of our state”.

According to Mubariz Gurbanli, the fact that Azerbaijani territories
have been occupied by Armenia is obvious and it is impossible to
deny it.

“So, results were not produced in the Kazan meeting because of
Armenia’s non-constructive position,” he said.

Mubariz Gurbanli said Russia as a co-chair of OSCE Minsk Group
continues its mediation mission after Kazan meeting. He considers
that the Sochi meeting of the two presidents aimed to discuss the
issues that had arisen in the Kazan meeting.

“President Ilham Aliyev once more said that Azerbaijan is ready to
solve the conflict in line with the norms of the international law
and within the framework of our country’s territorial integrity.

Azerbaijan is most of all interested in the resolution of this
conflict. The Azerbaijani side does not want the status quo to remain.

Of course, approaching the issue from the aspect of the ongoing
processes in the world, we see that Armenia’s economy is crashing.

Under these circumstances, steps are being taken to involve Armenia
in the regional projects and rescue it through solving the conflict.

Therefore, this activeness is obvious. I think following the Sochi
meeting, Russian President’s meeting with Armenian President and later
trilateral meeting will be one of the most important steps towards the
resolution of Armenia – Azerbaijan Nagorno Karabakh conflict,” he said.

ARMENIA SHOULD TREAT AZERBAIJANIS IN KARABAKH SAME WAY AZERBAIJAN TREATED ARMENIANS IN NAKHIJEVAN – POLITICAL SCIENTIST

news.am
Aug 11, 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN. – Armenia should treat former Azerbaijani population of
Karabakh the way Azerbaijan treated Armenians of Nakhijevan, political
scientist Levon Shirinyan told the journalists on Thursday.

He believes the issue of the status of Nakhijevan should be discussed
again.

“According to the Moscow and Kars treaties, Nakhijevan was given to
Azerbaijan as a protectorate in 1926. It means not permanently.

Azerbaijani leaders at that time decided to prohibit the inhabitants
of Nakhijevan to return their homeland. So Armenia can claim for a
similar resolution concerning Azerbaijanis, who used to live in the
territory of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Shirinyan told.

According to him, the conflict may be solved by applying European
model of development. The model of multi culture does not justify
itself neither in Europe nor in Southern Caucasus. People here will
not connect culture and religion, the expert added.

Besides, any autonomous formation sooner or later achieves its
independence, as U.S. Appliance of the principle of exterritorial
autonomy will guarantee national and cultural identity for a number
of Caucasus people. Moreover, the European values will finally be
realized.

GEVORGYAN SEMINARY ANNOUNCES ADMISSION

news.am
Aug 11, 2011
Armenia

ECHMIADZIN. – Seminary of Holy See of Echmiadzin (Theological
University) announces admission for 2011-2012.

All those with secondary (or higher) education, under 21, citizens
of Armenia or any other states as well as followers of Armenian
Apostolic Church can be admitted, press service of Holy See informs
Armenian News-NEWS.am.

The admission is based on exams and an interview. The applications are
submitted every day, except Sunday, till August 23. Contacts phone:
(010) 517-185, (010) 517-180.

ARMENIA: PROPERTY DISPUTES FUELING CHURCH TENSION BETWEEN YEREVAN AND TBILISI
Gayane Abrahamyan

EurasiaNet

Aug 11, 2011

The Georgian Orthodox Church’s claim to several monasteries in
neighboring Armenia is stoking religious tension between the two
South Caucasus neighbors.

The fact that Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as a
state religion (in 301 AD) is a source of national pride in Yerevan,
and government officials accordingly tend to be quick to defend the
prerogatives of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Authorities in Georgia,
the third country to make Christianity its state religion (in 326 AD,
after Ethiopia), feel similarly strongly about the rights of the
Georgian Orthodox Church. These deeply held opinions ensure that
cross-border property claims are a delicate topic.

Armenia Neither church today enjoys the status as a state religion,
although both represent the faith of a large majority of Armenians
and Georgians respectively.

In the post-Soviet era, church relations have travelled on a bumpy
path. A brief thaw set in after Georgian authorities in July approved
regulatory changes that would allow the Armenian Apostolic Church to
gain official status in Georgia. The Georgian Orthodox Church opposed
the revisions, but Armenian Apostolic Church representatives told
RFE/RL that it believed the objections did not have sectarian roots.

These days, property disputes are the primary source of tension. In
Armenia, the Georgian Orthodox Church desires official status and
ownership of five monasteries in areas near the Armenian-Georgian
border that it claims were founded as Georgian churches. Four of
the disputed properties are in the Lori region – the monasteries
of Akhtala, Kobair, Hnevanq, and Khuchap. The fifth, the Kirants
monastery, is in the Tavush region.

The Armenian Apostolic Church supports its Georgian counterpart’s
request for official status, but Armenian church leaders object to
handing over the monasteries.

“It [the Georgian Church] demands churches whose ownership is still
disputed,” claimed Armenian Apostolic Church spokesperson Father
Vahram Melikian.

The Armenian Apostolic Church contends that though these monasteries
may have functioned as Georgian believers during the 11th and 12th
centuries, they were built as Armenian Apostolic churches and should
remain so.

Practical considerations also should be taken into account, added
Father Vahram. The low number of ethnic Georgians living in Armenia
-only about 600, according to government data – does not justify the
transfer of five monasteries, Vahram contended.

During a June visit to Tbilisi, Armenian Apostolic Church Catholicos
Karekin II gave a more open-ended answer to Georgian Orthodox Church
Patriarch Ilia II on the matter. “You put your arguments down, we’ll
look at them. What prevents us from resolving these questions?”

Karekin II said in an unofficial videotaped chat posted on YouTube.

Ethnic Georgians in Armenia approach the church-property issue
gingerly. Local Georgian Orthodox believers do not yet have official
registration, a status that would grant them the ability to build
churches. The law is applicable to all religious communities with
at least 200 members. “It is unclear why they have not registered,”
Father Vahram commented.

At Yerevan’s St. George church, which serves a tiny Georgian Orthodox
community, the priest, Father Alexander, said that he petitioned
Georgian Orthodox Church Patriarch Ilia II in 2006 to be recognized
as a Georgian Orthodox church, “but didn’t get any answer.”

Religious rights watchdogs in the past have reported that some
Christian denominations skirt registration requirements since they
see it as an avenue for government interference.

Members of Armenia’s ethnic Georgian community tend to look to
Patriarch Ilia II and Catholicos Karekin II to take the lead on
tackling the question of ownership of the Lori and Tavush monasteries.

The property disputes go both ways. The Armenian Apostolic Church lays
claim to five churches in Tbilisi and one in the southern Georgian
town of Akhaltsikhe, which has a large ethnic Armenian population.

Father Vahram said the property claims were motivated by an Armenian
church desire to defend the religious rights of ethnic Armenians
living in Georgia. Such explanations, however, leave many in Tbilisi
feeling suspicious.

Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for ArmeniaNow.com in Yerevan.

ARMENIAN VOLUNTEERS ARRIVED FROM ABROAD COOPERATE WITH GYUMRI PEOPLE

ARMENPRESS
August 11, 2011
GYUMRI

Fifteen volunteers of the Armenian Volunteers’ Union cooperate with
Gyumri NGOs within the framework of a program of “To Hayq” benevolent
foundation. The volunteers arrived from different countries – Brasilia,
Argentina, Jordan (Hordanan), Jerusalem, the USA, Canada, Germany,
etc, have been working by different programs from May to October,

Gyumri Coordinator of “To Hayq” foundation Shoghik Michaelyan told
Armenpress that the majority of the volunteers are students and work by
their profession. The latter are currently working at “Young Lawyers’
Association”, “Nor Luys”, “Biosofia”, “Geofon”, “Youth Initiatives
Center”, “KAZA”, “Pyunik” NGOs and Gyumri Aesthetic Center.

“Not all the volunteers arrived in Armenia wish to work outside
Yerevan, but those who are in Gyumri have again expressed wish to come
here. According to them, Gyumri is a town with unique architecture,”
Shoghik Michaelyan noted. She said that the volunteers arrived in
Gyumri have already managed to make friends with Gyumri people.

MALE EXODUS REAL DISASTER FOR ARMENIA

Tert.am
11.08.11

An estimated 60,000 Armenians are leaving their country each year in
search of a better life, and the mass exodus has caused a startling
new trend: whole villages populated almost entirely by women, the
Huffington Post interne newspaper reports, quoting BBC.

While many men are leaving the former Soviet nation to go to Russia
to earn enough money to support their families, women and children
are usually left behind to work in the fields, the BBC is reporting.

One mother-of-two said that many women fear their husbands will set
up second families in Russia, which has happened often. As Milena
Kazaryan, a resident of Dzoragyugh says.

“All of the women are really scared. We phone every morning and
every evening, to find out what our husbands are up to. It’s always
really stressful wondering whether he’ll come back or not. A lot of
the women here worry because they think that in Russia all the girls
are beautiful. And the problem is that the men work very hard so of
course they also want to relax. That’s why they’re scared.

“It’s really tough because the whole family is just waiting and
waiting for the men to come back. All we want is jobs in Armenia
so that our families can stay together and so that fathers can see
their children grow up. A family is more than just the mum. We need
the dads here too.”

As one human rights activist writes, the lack of men is starting to
be felt throughout Armenian society, and the birthrate is already
starting to be affected. “There’s a new generation of girls growing
up who have no chance of getting married because all the boys are
leaving the country,” Karine Danelyan wrote in a letter to the
government.”So birthrates here in Armenia are now too low to keep
the population stable.”

Meanwhile, Armenia’s Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan recently tried to
downplay speculations about the mass exodus, and said the government
has had success in promoting the nation’s birthrate. “Today we have 3
million permanent residents in Armenia, and twice as many Armenians
living outside the country.” Noting that migration was not as large
as has been previously claimed by the media, he added, “This reflects
the mobility of our nation, that is, our citizens can move freely,
since there are favorable conditions for it.”

Many of those migrants, Sargsyan said, were seasonal workers who
eventually return home. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991,
Armenia had an estimated 4 million residents, at least one-quarter
of which have since emigrated for employment abroad.

PRESIDENT WRAPS UP VISIT TO RUSSIA

news.az
Aug 10, 2011
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has completed a one-day working
visit to Russia.

He held wide-ranging talks his Russian counterpart, Dmitriy Medvedev,
in Sochi on Tuesday.

They exchanged views on key issues in Russian-Azerbaijani relations
and regional affairs, including the current state of resolution of
the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, according
to the Russian president’s website.

They discussed matters arising from Dmitriy Medvedev’s visit to Baku in
September 2010, including the implementation of agreements on trade,
energy, investments and banking, the legal status of the Caspian Sea
and humanitarian issues.

At the start of the talks, Ilham Aliyev thanked Dmitriy Medvedev
for his personal role in the Karabakh peace process: “I would
like to express my gratitude once more for efforts to settle the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In Azerbaijan we value very highly your
personal involvement in the process. The rounds of talks have brought
the positions of the sides closer.”

Dmitriy Medvedev has hosted nine meetings of the Azerbaijani and
Armenian presidents to discuss resolution of the Karabakh conflict.

The last meeting in Kazan in June ended without significant progress
being made.

He will meet Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan on 12 and 13 August
at a Collective Security Treaty summit in Kazakhstan.

Ilham Aliyev was seen off at Sochi International Airport on Tuesday
by the city’s mayor, Anatoliy Pakhomov, and other officials, state-run
news agency AzerTAj reported.

He arrived in Azerbaijan later on Tuesday and was met at Heydar Aliyev
International Airport by Prime Minister Artur Rasizade and Baku mayor
Hajibala Abutalibov.

News.Az